6 OWLS 



rafter, to all appearance fast asleep. But he sleeps 

 with one eye or one ear open. There is a slight 

 movement, invisible to the human eye ; a slight 

 rustle, inaudible to the human ear, in the straw 

 below. In a moment he is all eye, all ear. The 

 tucked-up leg joins the other ; the head is bent 

 forward and downward ; the dark bright eyes gaze 

 with an almost painful intensity on the spot from 

 which the rustle comes. The mouse or rat shows 

 itself, and in a moment again, without one move- 

 ment of his wings and without one tremor of the 

 air, he " drops" upon his prey. There is hardly a 

 struggle or a cry ; his long, strong, sharp talons 

 and no bird of his size has such long, such 

 strong, and such sharp talons have met in the 

 vitals of his victim, and he flies back with it, 

 grasped tightly in them, to his coign of van- 

 tage ; after a fitting interval of meditation, bolts 

 or tries to bolt it whole, and then patiently waits 

 for another rustle below. From such a retreat, well 

 stored with grain and well garrisoned with rats 

 and mice, he rarely, except for purposes of getting 

 water, needs to stir. But he is almost equally at 

 home in the hollow of some immemorial oak or 

 ash or elm, where he or his forefathers have 

 dozed for decades or for centuries, or in the 



